THE ENTRY OF AMERICA INTO THE WAR.

SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE AMERICAN LUNCHEON CLUB

(SAVOY HOTEL), APRIL 12TH, 1917.

I AM in the happy position, I think, of being the first British Minister of the Crown who, speaking on behalf of the people of this country, can salute the American nation as comrades in arms. I am glad. I am proud. I am glad not merely because of the stupendous resources which this great nation can bring to the succour of the Alliance, but I rejoice as a Democrat that the advent of the United States into this war gives the final stamp and seal to the character of the conflict as a struggle against military autocracy throughout the world.

66

‘A Fight for Human Liberty."

That was the note that rang through the great deliverance of President Wilson. It was echoed in your resounding words to-day, Sir. The United States of America have a noble tradition, never broken, of having never engaged in a war except for liberty, and this is the greatest struggle for liberty they have ever embarked upon. I am not at all surprised, when one recol

lects the wars of the past, that America took its time to make up its mind about the character of this struggle. In Europe most of the great wars of the past were waged for dynastic aggrandisements and for conquest. No wonder that when this great war started there were some elements of suspicion still lurking in the minds of the people of the United States of America. There were many who thought, perhaps, that kings were at their old tricks, and although they saw the gallant Republic of France fighting, some of them perhaps, regarded France as the poor victim of conspiracy and of monarchical swashbucklers. The fact that the United States of America has made up its mind finally makes it abundantly clear to the world that this is no struggle of that character, but a great fight for human liberty.

The Prussian Military Caste.

They naturally did not know at first what we had endured in Europe for years from this military caste in Prussia. It never reached as far as the United States of America. Prussia is not a democracy, but the Kaiser promises it will be a democracy after the war. I think he is right. But Prussia not merely was not a democracy; Prussia was not a State. Prussia was an army. It had great industries, highly developed. It had a great educational system. It had its universities. It developed its sciences. But all these were subordinate to the one great predominant

purpose of an all-conquering army which was to intimidate the world. The army was the spearpoint of Prussia; the rest was merely the shaft.

That is what we had to deal with in these old countries. It got on the nerves of Europe. We knew what it all meant. The Prussian Army in recent times had waged three wars-all for conquest. And the incessant tramping of its legions through the streets of Prussia and on the parade grounds of Prussia had got into the Prussian head. The Kaiser, when he witnessed it on a grand scale in his reviews, got drunk with the sound of it. He delivered the law to the world, as though Potsdam were a new Sinai and he were uttering the law from the thundercloud. But make no mistake; Europe was uneasy. Europe was half intimidated; Europe was anxious; Europe was apprehensive. We knew the whole time what it meant. What we did not know was the moment it would come. This is the menace, this is the oppression, from which Europe has suffered for fifty years. It paralysed the beneficent activities of all States, which ought to have been devoted to, and concentrated upon, the wellbeing of their people. They had to think about this menace, which was there constantly as a cloud, ready to burst over the land.

Take France. No one No one can tell except the Frenchman what they endured from this tyranny, patiently, gallantly, with dignity, until the hour of deliverance came. The best energies in democratic France have been devoted to defence

against the impending terror. France was like a nation which had put up its right arm to ward off a blow, and it could not use the whole of its strength for the great things France was capable of. That great, bold, imaginative, fertile mind, which would otherwise have been cleaving new paths of progress, was paralysed. This was the state of things we had to encounter.

"The Hindenburg Line."

The most characteristic of all Prussian institutions is the Hindenburg line. What is the Hindenburg line? The Hindenburg line is a line drawn in the territories of other people with a warning that the inhabitants of those territories shall not cross it at the peril of their lives. That line has been drawn in Europe for fifty years in many lands. You recollect what happened some years ago in France when the French Foreign Minister was practically driven out of office by Prussian interference. Why? What had he done? He had done nothing that the Minister of an independent State had not the most absolute right to do. He crossed that imaginary line drawn in French territory by Prussian despotism, and he had to leave.

Europe, after enduring this for generations, made up its mind at last that the Hindenburg line must be drawn along the legitimate frontiers of Germany herself. It has been an undoubted fight for the emancipation of Europe and the

emancipation of the world. It was hard at first for the people of America quite to appreciate that. Germany had not interfered to the same extent with their freedom, if at all. But at last she has endured the same experience to which Europe has been subjected. Americans were told they were not to be allowed to cross and recross the Atlantic except at their peril. American ships were sunk without warning. American subjects were drowned with hardly an apology, in fact as a matter of German right. At first America could hardly believe it. They could not think it possible that any sane people could behave in that manner. And they tolerated it once, they tolerated it twice, until at last it became clear that the Germans really meant it. The Hindenburg line was drawn along the shores of America, and Americans were told they must not cross it. America said, "What is this?" and was told that this was a line beyond which they must not go. Then America acted, and acted promptly. America said, "The place for that line is not the Atlantic, but on the Rhine, and we mean to help you to roll it up." And they have started.

The Inspiration of Freedom.

There are two great facts which clinch the argument that this is a great struggle for freedom. The first is the fact that America has come in. She could not have done otherwise. The second is the Russian Revolution. When France